Save Rock and Roll {ON HOLD}

Chapter 2- Bitter Defeat

~Patrick~

"Remind me never to try and talk to those llamas again. How do you and Pete understand them?" Andy asks me, and I shrug, not really knowing how to explain it. How do we understand the llamas? Well...we just do, and neither Pete and I really know how.

"How many times do we have to explain it, Andy? We don't really know. We just do," Pete answered, and I quickly put in my agreement. I look out the hotel window, knowing that a couple states over is what used to be California. It had been hard after coming back to life adjusting to the world. We hadn't known that years had actually gone on without us, but I suppose we should have considered it as a possibility. After all, is there really such thing as time up in Heaven? While we were gone, fires and war destroyed California, and now it's really only this place called Battery City. No one really visits Battery City and the only people that live there are Californians, so I really don't know what the place is like. I've heard it's surrounded by desert wasteland, but no one can confirm that. While that was happening, the cult that we had to face relocated to New York City, and our old friends, the members of My Chemical Romance, had given up being a band and had traded their instruments for guns, donning masks and new names and becoming the Killjoys. At least, that's what I've heard, anyway.

Meanwhile, we had struggled to adjust to returning to life, but we had done it. We had released a new album based on our fight with the cult, aptly called Save Rock and Roll, and in the five years that had followed that we had made and released two other albums, American Beauty/American Psycho and our latest gem, Mania. We were dead for four years, from 2009 to 2013, and the "Great Fires" happened right after we died, the wars shortly after that, and by mid-2010, Battery City had been established. Now, in 2019, we are just finishing up everything we are going to do with Mania. At least, everything we are purposefully going to do. Pete and I had just said goodbye to the llamas, who had been so kind as to help us out. Even though they were probably scary to some since we had them pretend to kill Pete. Our other friends, Brendon Urie and the young guns, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, had also been prospering during our time gone, but we were all just having a blast by now. Except for the Killjoys. I don't assume they're having fun doing whatever they're doing, but whatever. As Pete, Andy, and I were talking, we heard a scream from downstairs, and in a moment, Joe was crashing into the room.

"Guys, downstairs...you have to come see..." We didn't hesitate for a moment. I think that some of our Young Blood instincts were still with us, even though we haven't been the Young Bloods for years. After the cult had been defeated, we had given up being the Young Bloods, and we went back to just being Fall Out Boy, and I preferred the second one better. I didn't have to deal with murderous cult members, I just had to deal with media, fans, and jokes about me being as short as I am. We followed Joe to where he had come from, which was a hotel room two floors down. He didn't say anything, just pointed into the room, telling us that whatever was in there wasn't pretty. Pete, forever the fearless leader, stepped in first, and once I heard his gasp, I knew it was bad. I took a moment to prepare myself for whatever might be in there, but nothing could have prepared me for that. Nothing at all. As soon as I stepped into the room, the smell of blood hit me, and I had to fight flashbacks of the battle with the cult. I still can't wipe some of those images from my mind.

"Oh my God..." I'm not sure which one of us said it, but it was completely appropriate in the situation. Lying on the bed were two bodies, both girls, both of them face up, showing us everything that was done to them.

"How...how did you find this room, Joe? How did you get in?" Pete asks.

"The hotel staff found me and asked me to take a look."